2006

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0830 Thursday, 21 September 2006
[1] From: Ray Lischner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 20 Sep 2006 13:24:50 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0821 Movie Stills
[2] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 20 Sep 2006 13:40:10 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0821 Movie Stills
[3] From: Jeffrey Jordan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 21 Sep 2006 00:02:24 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0821 Movie Stills
[4] From: John Crowley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 21 Sep 2006 07:47:51 -0400
Subj: Movie Stills
[5] From: John Crowley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 21 Sep 2006 08:00:45 -0400
Subj: Movie stills
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ray Lischner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 20 Sep 2006 13:24:50 -0400
Subject: 17.0821 Movie Stills
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0821 Movie Stills
Helen Whall wrote:
>Some suggestions, please, from
>those who have secured rights both to stills and very short clips?
I obtained all my stills from stock photo houses.
Ray Lischner, author of Shakespeare for Dummies
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 20 Sep 2006 13:40:10 -0400
Subject: 17.0821 Movie Stills
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0821 Movie Stills
Tom Krause issues this challenge:
>feel free to tell us how copyright infringement resembles
>theft, or how you think copyright infringers should be
>hung as thieves (if that's your view), but please resist
>the temptation to equate the two.
All right, I'll pick up the gage.
The question seems not so much focused on the nature of the wrongful act
(although I will address that too) as the nature of the property. In
his last post, Prof. Egan professed a child-like understanding of
property when he denied that copyright was a legitimate property
interest because it cannot be touched with our hands. Frankly, I doubt
that someone as sophisticated as Gabe Egan actually thinks that property
must have physical dimensions, but I will leave for him or others to
tell us if they would really confine protected property interests to
non-income producing artifacts.
The most valuable property we own is intangible: bank accounts and
other debts, interests in business ventures, licenses to practice
professions or trades, etc. The common element that makes this property
valuable is that it is capable of producing a stream of revenue.
Even real estate is valuable not because of its physical existence but
because title imbues the owner with the right to exclude others and
charge for use. Consider this situation: I purchase a vacant apartment
house but before I can rent the apartments a group of squatters take up
occupancy and refuse to leave. They have not deprived me of my
building, but they have deprived me of that which makes my building
valuable and what I paid to receive.
Similarly, the copyright infringer does not take my property -- the
copyright -- but he does take that which makes the copyright worth
having: the right to receive income from granting permission to copy the
protected work. That income is the compensation the author receives for
his work, inspiration, research, talent and time. A teacher who
lectures a class of students is entitled to by paid. Should he not be
paid if he writes his lectures for publication to a wider audience?
And, in a very real sense, does not an infringer "steal" the author's
work, inspiration, research, talent and time if he publishes the
lectures without compensating the author?
But what about fair use? The statute expressly recognizes that some
uses serve a public purpose and deprive the copyright owner of
comparatively little, so that use without permission should be allowed.
I do not quibble with this. But in determining in any given case
whether the doctrine should be applied we cannot focus exclusively on
the nature of the use; the financial interest of the author must be
weighed in the balance. That is why the statute directs that the courts
consider the "effect of the use upon the potential market or value of
the copyrighted work."
Now here is a hypothetical case for you all to ponder: A theoretical
physicist spent twenty years working out a knotty problem in quantum
field theory. Finally he hits on a brilliant and elegant solution which
he summarizes in a 50-word abstract supported by a two-hundred page
article filled with complex equations proving his solution. May another
professor copy the abstract and distribute it to his classes without
first obtaining permission?
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jeffrey Jordan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 21 Sep 2006 00:02:24 -0500
Subject: 17.0821 Movie Stills
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0821 Movie Stills
Replying to Tom Krause.
>I'm a bit puzzled by your response Jeffrey Jordan - you
>continue to insist that "the difference [between copyright
>infringement and theft] is not really worth marking in
>general discussion" ...
I don't think that insisting, to the public in general, that copyright
infringement is absolutely not theft, is helpful to the rule of law. It
does more harm than good in general discussion. It will only mislead
the average person. The average person who hears the assertion
"copyright infringement is NOT theft!" is going to think it's all right.
The average person would take the meaning to be that copyright
infringement is not offensive. One must adjust one's "performance" for
the intended audience, so to speak. The use of "theft" or "stealing"
in reference to copyright infringement is wise usage, in general
discussion, to keep the idea basic for those who have other things on
their minds than legal technicalities.
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."
(The Purist, by Ogden Nash. And I have little doubt it's copyrighted.
I claim fair use, as directly pertinent to this discussion.)
There's such a thing as being a little too fussy over terminology.
>at the same time you tell us that the use of a few movie stills
>- apparently for any purpose - ...
I didn't tell anybody that. Quoting directly from my earlier post:
"... for a recognized purpose." I'd hope it was obvious I was not
implying "fair use" in, for example, the use of stills in a defamation
campaign against the movie maker. "Any purpose" is not correct to my
view, or to what I wrote. The immediate purpose is the use of
Shakespeare movie stills in connection with a Shakespeare presentation.
>If a judge were to disagree with you ...
One should refrain from trying to argue as a judge unless one is one.
Also, innocence is presumed. Innocent fair use is going to be a
virtually automatic defense where a few Shakespeare movie stills appear
in a S. presentation. The plaintiff would have to overcome that. When
the stills are reasonably few in number, offer no competition for movie
revenue, and so on, the plaintiff is going to find his position untenable.
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Crowley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 21 Sep 2006 07:47:51 -0400
Subject: Movie Stills
>A pragmatic question: How does one get a movie studio to reply to
>requests for permissions? I very much prefer to err on the side of
>caution with the reproduction of images but have yet to identify a
>simple path to securing permission for movie stills
When I was trying to locate the copyright holder for a quotation used in
a novel, I was told by my publisher that if the search failed I needed
only to give notice of that: "All reasonable attempts to identify the
copyright holder of quoted materials has been made. If the
publisher/author receives information regarding the rights in such
materials, acknowledgement will be made in future editions."
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Crowley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 21 Sep 2006 08:00:45 -0400
Subject: Movie stills
Almost all movie posters and many movie stills from the 1940s to the
1980s were actually copyrighted by an agency called the National Screen
Service, which subcontracted the creation of posters, lobby cards and
other flat art for movie lobbies. Distributors and theater owners got
all this material directly from National Screen Service offices, and as
I remember from my days in the movie business (brief) NSS held the
copyrights. Now that they have been bought out by Technicolor Inc, I
suppose the copyrights moved too.
As to finding stills, if you can get there, here is probably the largest
single source in the US: http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/mpstills.html
It should also be remembered that large numbers of publicity stills were
copyright-free from the beginning. They were intended for general
reproduction -- they were advertising. Many of them are stamped on the
back "For Immediate Distribution" or some such tag meaning that they
were reproducible without fee or other charge.
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